Sea Foam
by asoftwarmphoenix
Summary: This tale begins with Ariel dissolving into sea foam, ascending to godhood, and saving Gaston. All of Beauty and the Beast (1991 Disney film) happened as is, but in The Little Mermaid (1989 Disney film) Ariel failed and became sea foam like in the Hans Christian Andersen story. Inspired by a dream of one of the action sequences. [Cover stock from intergalacticstock on DeviantArt]
1. Chapter I: Dissolve

**Chapter I: Dissolve**

* * *

Princess Ariel's heart had stopped. It felt like the most important thing in the world to her. It was supposed to be beating. And her arms and tail weren't supposed to be dissolving into sea foam.

She also couldn't move.

Suddenly Ariel felt very silly. Of course her tyrant of a father and Sebastian had been wrong, of course she'd been right to leave the sea and pursue the human Prince Eric's affections, but... maybe taking the witch Ursula's deal hadn't been the best way of doing it. It definitely felt that way now she'd failed at, well, everything.

Ariel floated, alone and nearly lifeless, beneath the surface of the shallow sea. The wedding ship had moved on, and dim red light of the just-set sun danced weakly in its wake. There was an odd feeling as her intestines fell out of her dissolving torso. A sort of... well, she had nothing to compare it to, really.

Ursula's power was doing this, unravelling her, killing her. But why? Ariel had thought that Ursula would turn her into one of those terrifying withered things if she failed. If she was lucky, maybe Ursula would have ransomed her back to King Triton, her father. But Ariel hadn't expected to fail, and Ursula was more ruthless than she'd feared.

Had Ursula killed Flounder and Sebastian too, while Ariel was unconscious after being transformed into a drowning human at the bottom of the sea? It all seemed so obvious now. Why hadn't Ariel just slowed down and let herself realise what was happening?

But no, she was a fool and they were dead, just like Scuttle. Ariel didn't even know how that had happened. The gull's broken body had been left floating in the sea behind the ship, in a cloud of his own blood. What could have done that? He didn't look like he'd been hit by the ship. More like he'd been crushed and discarded by a callous sea monster.

She had meant to go back for him.

How had Ariel failed so badly?

Her shell bra floated free from her dissolving body and she felt oddly exposed, despite now lacking what it had been covering.

But, wait, what was Ursula's goal if she was just planning on killing Ariel? Why do all this?

Ariel barely felt her jaw drifting loose. She watched numbly as it dissolved into a stream of foamy bubbles.

This was the end then. Triton's youngest daughter would be the first of them to die, joining the friends she had let down.

One last memory haunted Ariel. The sun had set and she had reverted to being a mermaid. After she had removed her heavy human clothes and caught up with the wedding ship, Vanessa had glanced down at her from the deck. Eric's wife had simply smiled and turned away, just before Ursula's power took control of Ariel. Maybe Vanessa just liked seeing merpeople. But her smile had a cruel edge. Perhaps Vanessa had been gloating in her victory.

Everything became nothing.

Actually...

Not nothing. _Nothing_ couldn't flow.

And she was not nothing. She was... something else. She had forgotten her name. She was supposed to have one of those, because... wait, was there such a thing as individuals and labels used to differentiate them, or was that just a dream? Everything was a mess.

 _Focus._ What was she?

Flowing. Liquid.

 _More precise._

Water? No, sea foam.

 _Where?_

She slowly became aware of her surroundings, by touch rather than any other sense. She was foam carried on a cold wave, blasted by rain and icy winds.

Her wave broke against a cliff and she flowed inside it. There were cracks and empty spaces in the soft sandstone, carved out by the sea. She filled them and felt the stone move around her. The roaring vibrations of the salty sea were drowned out by a loud cracking noise, like the sound of a ship's mast snapping in a storm.

A mast snapping. That was part of an important memory. She tried to hold on to it, examine the rest of it, but it was torn away in the churning flow.

Around her, through her, the cliff collapsed.

She became aware of something powerful approaching her. It wasn't a person, or even a thing. More an idea - an idea that she had become the fulfilment of. So now it was her and she was it.

No longer just sea foam. She was a force of nature.

The collapsing cliff scattered her into the sea, and her grip on time and space seeped away. She flowed without form, connected to her domain. Years passed like heartbeats.

Rivers carved out canyons. Clay yielded to the rush of streams. Dry desert winds blasted rocks into sand. Erosion took its natural course throughout the world, and she had a small amount of influence over it.

A small amount of influence over a long time could make a huge change. Probably. She decided to test her powers.

Two streams flowed down a mountain, feeding rivers rushing in opposite directions. She encouraged water and temperature changes to weaken and break certain rocks. Eventually the side of the mountain collapsed. One of the streams changed course, joining the other. That river flowed stronger with the waters of the diverted stream, carving out a deeper, more direct course to the sea. The weakened river, which the stream used to feed, meandered and silted up, deprived of its strongest source.

Had she a mouth to grin with, the elemental spirit would have grinned.

She was now many centuries downstream from when she had started. That wasn't a problem, she sensed, because time was a direction she could move in. She braced herself against the structure of the universe then launched herself against the rush of time, like spray flying back up a waterfall. It was fun, and surprisingly effortless.

Something undefinable tugged at her, and she let it guide her as she rejoined the stream of time. As she did, she heard a voice, distant but clear.

"O Goddess Ariel, we make this sacrifice as our ancestors did, that you might protect our land and home as you protected theirs."

Wait, _Ariel?_ That was her name! She had a name!

Wait, _Goddess?_

Wait, _SACRIFICE?_


	2. Chapter II: Seep

**Chapter II: Seep**

* * *

With an odd rush of nausea the elemental spirit - _Ariel! I have a name!_ \- found herself existing physically again. She was foam, floating on a cold, calm sea. The people who summoned her here had called her a goddess, but she didn't feel particularly divine in this form.

The sacrifice they had made pulled at her, from over that way and up a bit, on the land. Ariel worried about what it might be. Hopefully not something _alive_ , like an animal or person. Something like she used to be. Hearing her name reminded her that she had once been mortal, able to see and hear and move and talk.

Ariel could move water and dust and air, make it do stuff, break things. Now she _was_ mostly water, plus some goopy stuff making her a bit thicker and bubblier. She tried and... yes! She moved, swirling on the water's surface without being pushed by a current. She felt herself rippling in a way that could have been grinning if she'd had a face.

 _A face! I should have one of those!_ Ariel pulled herself together into a more unified blob, coalesced balls of water for eyes, and moved the bubbliest outer layer of her foam out of the way. She willed herself to see and hear... and suddenly she could see and hear! She was floating on an inky dark sea, gazing up at the three-quarter moon. It was a clear night, and the stars shone brightly. A familiar and comfortable sea salt smell, or maybe taste, filled her watery nose. _Taste and smell exist!_ She hadn't even remembered those. Her transparent form seemed to be pulling itself together and doing stuff without her consciously guiding it.

Ariel turned her water ball eyes toward the sacrifice. A tall pale cliff towered out of the sea between her and it, jagged and ghostly in the moonlight. The cracks and weak spots in the cliff, the places where erosion was happening... Ariel became aware of them, but it wasn't as intense and clear as when she was formless. She didn't feel like she could influence it from this far away. Being physical limited her reach.

Ariel flowed toward the cliff and the sacrifice beyond it. White foam formed a trail behind her head like long hair, which felt familiar so she kept it that way. She formed a mouth of water and grinned impulsively, before setting her expression to a more determined one. She had to go investigate. The sacrifice was calling to her, pulling at her.

As she approached the cliff, Ariel lifted herself out of the sea. Turned out flying was surprisingly easy. Her backup plan had been to flow up the cliff's surface, through the cracks and crevices, but that wouldn't be necessary. She flew, a liquid face trailing a long mane of bubbles and froth and an amorphous cloud of water blobs and droplets almost approximating a body. Up, up, through the chilly air. She rippled and distorted as she gained speed, glinting in the moonlight.

She crested the cliff and a vast meadow of grass and other small plants came in to view. The sacrifice was near a small house made of stacked stones, its peaked roof curving almost like an upside-down boat. It was illuminated by light from a fire in a shallow pit nearby. How exciting. A human dwelling. Small, only enough room for one family.

Ariel flew toward the house and saw a man and a woman standing together outside. They were looking down at something small on the ground outside to the doorway. The sacrifice. Its pull became stronger as Ariel approached. It was nagging, insistent.

It was a folded sleeveless shirt, with a loaf of hard bread placed atop it.

The woman grunted and took the man's hand in hers tightly. He gasped when he saw Ariel. Ariel was annoyed that they were making noise, distracting her from the sacrifice. It consumed her attention, hungered for more. It was the only thing that mattered.

Ariel slowed to hover before the sacrifice and found herself extending a stream of droplets to touch it. The improvised arm shimmered in the golden fire light. As soon as Ariel touched the folded shirt, the seductive pull of the sacrifice vanished.

 _That was creepy._

She was still aware of the sacrifice, like she was aware of her own form, but it wasn't overpowering any more.

Ariel turned to look at the humans. They looked very interesting, wearing human clothes and standing on the land. The woman's skirt was a pretty colour, a sort of green that hinted toward blue in a way that felt familiar. The man had a beard and held a staff. Ariel felt guilty about being annoyed at them just now. She shouldn't have let the sacrifice dominate her mind like that.

The humans' things around the house were so interesting. Ariel darted back and forth, looking around. They had a little wooden flat thing with three legs on the bottom, and a wooden fence and... wait, she was being rude. Ariel looked back at the humans and tried to speak, to introduce herself. All she did was slosh around a bit.

The man cleared his throat and slightly bowed his head. "O great Ariel, we are honoured that you chose to acknowledge our sacrifice and appear to us."

 _So that's how speech works. Of course._ Flowing air, up through vibrating throat, out through mouth. Ariel formed a throat and tried again. Nothing. She was sure she was doing it right this time, but somehow she couldn't make a sound.

The woman took half a step forward, looking at the ground beside Ariel. "We... we brought our sheep out here. The pasture is good, but sometimes the storms scare us." She finally made eye contact with Ariel. "Please, would you spare us from erosion, Lady Ariel? Would you not let our pasture fall into the sea?"

Did they think all erosion that happened was her doing? It wasn't. Ariel could influence the natural process, but she couldn't be everywhere. No, wait, she _could_. Being able to jump around time, she _could_ go everywhere and influence everything, eventually, given enough, well, time. _Wow_.

Regardless, she could definitely help them with the cliff. Ariel nodded vigorously to signify that she would. Her face sloshed around strangely so she stopped.

They seemed to understand. The man smiled, a warm, friendly smile. "Thank you. I was wondering, will you... will you be taking the sacrifice or leaving it? It varied in the old tales, and my grandfather didn't know why."

The woman glanced at him in shock. "Ine. Don't be rude. She is a _goddess_."

Ariel looked back at the bread and sleeveless shirt. She wasn't hungry, and she didn't have a defined enough body to wear clothes. She briefly shook her head to signify "no".

The man nodded and smiled. "I guessed so. You never did in the tales where you appeared as a whisper on the wind or as... bubbly water. Only sometimes when you were a mermaid."

The woman poked him in the ribs. "Ine!"

 _I was a mermaid!_ Ariel grinned and swirled around. That was what she had been before becoming an elemental spirit! She'd had long red hair and a green tail, green like the woman's skirt only paler! Who had she been when she was a mermaid? What had she done, who had she known?

 _Anything else at all?_

 _Nothing?_

No, nothing further came back to her. This was almost worse than not remembering at all. It was frustrating knowing that she'd had a life as a mermaid but knowing nothing about it.

Ariel wondered how she would become formless again in order to protect these wonderful people from the cliff being eroded.

Ariel found herself suddenly formless again.

 _Whoops._

She was tempted to try to manifest again, but she had promised to help them.

 _Okay._ She felt the erosion throughout the stone, the cracks where water trickled through, the pounding of the waves against it. This was so much sharper, more intense, than when she was physical. She could feel all the places where if she didn't intervene, parts of the cliff would collapse, dropping chunks of the pasture into the sea. There was even a fault that endangered the house.

Ariel made the waves lose almost all of their energy before hitting the cliff, and moved falling raindrops so they would splash harmlessly into the sea. Enough rainfall on the pasture to keep the plants healthy, but not enough to wash away the soil or damage the stone.

Wait, where were the humans and sheep? They must have gone or died. The house and pasture were abandoned, empty. Ariel hadn't been paying close enough attention to what they were doing to notice when or how they had left. Maybe they would come back?

Years passed. Nobody returned to the shepherds' house.

Ariel wondered if they had lived out a long and happy life. How many years had it been since she had visited them? How long did humans live?

Oh well. Ariel hoped they had been happy. She had fulfilled her promise to them.

Stopping erosion from happening here felt kind of unnatural, uncomfortable. Erosion was Ariel's function, her nature. She hadn't noticed until now, but her power had become duller, like it was withering. She ached.

Maybe exercise would help. Ariel unleashed her power on the cliff as destructively as she could. She amplified the erosion, blasting the cliff with wind and rain and changes in temperature, even with pieces of itself as it fell. The landscape cracked and crumbled all the way back to the empty house. That collapsed into the sea during a hellish storm where the fault in the stone beneath it gave way all at once, drowning out the thunder. Ariel's power felt stronger and more vibrant than ever.

Maybe there were other people she could help. That would be fun. The man, Ine, had mentioned that she had visited and helped other people who had made sacrifices to her, earlier in time.

Ariel grabbed the flow of time through the universe and shoved herself _away_ from it a bit, rather than forward or backward, to try to get an overview perspective of any other sacrifices. _Bad idea._ She found herself flailing and falling _away_ from the flow of time entirely.

Something unfathomably huge and powerful noticed her and shifted slightly.

Ariel heaved herself back toward the stream of time with all her might. As she did so, she realised the force she had grabbed as a lifeline was actually the distant pull of the sacrifices to her throughout the past and future, all over the world. They seemed nearly as countless as the stars in the night sky.


	3. Chapter III: Permeate

**Chapter III: Permeate**

* * *

The horn sounded again, much closer this time. The shrill howl cut through the dual roar of the storm and the battle.

"I beg you, Goddess!" the warrior screamed, struggling to put his returned breastplate back on. "Please, bring the pass down before their reinforcements arrive!"

" _Quiet!_ " Ariel hissed at the warrior, using the sound of the wind and rain as an ugly, improvised voice. An arrow splashed harmlessly through her twisting sea foam body.

Ariel wielded her power with the precision and speed she could only harness when manifested physically. She expanded her senses into the mountain and felt for useful faults and weak spots, keys which could help her achieve the task using the limited stamina she had when using her powers so directly.

Wind and rain and lightning twisted in the sky, blasting against the mountainside. The temperature of the rock face fluctuated unevenly, forming cracks that let the rain water torrent inside, flowing unnaturally, _burrowing_. This was erosion amplified to ridiculous heights; an elemental force wielded as a tool, far beyond nature's limits.

With a sound louder than the thunder, the mountainside collapsed, a vast rockslide that would bury the narrowest part of the pass and those warriors who were unlucky enough to be fighting there. Ariel gave way alongside it, losing her grip on her watery form as her powers were exhausted by the feat. She fell, like a thicker, foamier part of the rain that hammered that battlefield.

Then, as if the air was thickening to catch her, she stopped falling.

Everything became still: the cascade of boulders tumbling into the pass; the raindrops, blood droplets, and arrows in the air; the bolt of lightning hitting the mountaintop; the warriors - not quite all the warriors. An idle bowman, carrying no arrows, watched her from across the battlefield. The expression beneath his wide helmet betrayed nothing, but his eyes were piercing.

Instinctively Ariel tried to demanifest, but nothing happened. Without time flowing she was trapped. The situation was confusing, intimidating, like-

Like when she had encountered that _thing_ outside of time.

This must be _it_. It had taken the form of an archer on the battlefield and _stopped time_. Ariel was as helpless as an ant held by a human.

Rainbow distortions were building up around the bowman as he breathed and subtly moved, like he was carving through the air, shattering light.

Suddenly his bow was hanging unsupported in the air because his left arm was raised, outstretched directly toward Ariel. The trail of the instantaneous movement looked like a crack in a crystal.

Ariel lost control of her thoughts. She was cast into her memories, most of which she didn't recognise.

 _The mermaid floated helpless in a sea of dull red, slowly unravelling._

 _Ariel awoke draped over a rock near the shore, bruised and alone. Her feet surprised her._

 _Ariel and her friend fled from the shark. They circled upward toward the open sea above the wrecks, searching for a way to outwit the beast._

 _The spirit honoured the weaver's sacrifice and protected the garden from being washed away in the flood, all without manifesting physically. Ariel had learned to understand voices spoken into strong winds she had influence over by the tiny changes they made to it, and to respond in kind as a whisper on the wind._

 _The taken voice entered the shell necklace, and there was laughter. A bubble of light took hold of Ariel. Golden lightning danced over her body, swirling through her, changing her. She screamed silently as her tail split in two then became human legs. Her human lungs filled with water and she thrashed around in agony until the darkness took her._

For one moment the rain and Ariel resumed their fall, then everything stopped again. A golden spark had somehow formed, hanging frozen between two of Ariel's droplets.

The being in the form of an archer took a half step back, a look of barely-contained terror on its face, then demanifested.

Time resumed, and the spark disappeared. Ariel splashed against the slick, rocky ground. She lay there, foam in the blood and rain, as the falling mountainside blocked the pass. The defenders let out a cheer which turned into a battle cry as they fell upon the remaining invaders with renewed confidence.

Ariel tried to make sense of what had just happened. That _thing_ must be an elemental spirit far more powerful than her. Had it seen her memories, or was its reaction just based on the golden spark she had somehow produced? The one just like the lightning that had made her human.

The memory that she had become human just gave Ariel more questions about her past. Dissolving into sea foam had happened when she was a mermaid, so she must have changed back from human at some point. Were there further forms she'd had and since forgotten?

More pressingly, maybe she didn't have to remain sea foam.

A mortally wounded invader fell onto Ariel, and she hastily demanifested before even considering whether the powerful spirit might be nearby. As her perspective became that of a detached observer outside of events, she was pleased to not sense any presence beside her own.

There were still many sacrifices Ariel hadn't visited. They shined and called out to her in the void. Where she had previously thought of them as relatively safe for her, the experience with the spirit on that battlefield had shaken her. She wouldn't go to any more sacrifices, at least for now.

Ariel felt for the places in space and time she would have lots of influence due to the dominance of her element, erosion, but where nothing much else stood out. No sacrifices. No sense that more was at play than she could grasp. _There._ Ariel cautiously slid herself backward in time a short way and concentrated on a mountain ridge which was weakening beneath the weight of snow and ice.

The cold hit Ariel harder than she expected as she manifested on the wind as a misplaced spray of seawater and foam. Ariel caught herself and coalesced defensively into a sphere, but she was already slushy with ice crystals. _Bad choice of spot to visit._ This was the coldest place she had been in this form. Probably in any form, but she had no way of knowing that for certain.

Ariel drew in heat from the air and quickly liquefied, but it was a struggle to stop her surface from frosting over again.

 _So, the spark_. The golden lightning that had transformed her from mermaid to human. Ariel ran through the recovered memory, searching for clues, trying to remember how it had felt. What was in the background of the memory? Swirling light... darkness... stone... dark tentacles. Nothing useful.

Something shifted and a goat bleated in distress. A faint golden glow dissipated as Ariel noticed it, and she quickly spotted the goat. Gravel and snow was falling from a boulder that had slipped toward a chasm's edge under the small brown goat's weight. Ariel expanded her powers toward the rock to try to stop it shifting further, but it was too late. The rock and the goat fell.

Ariel threw herself beneath the goat, moving faster than it was falling. She collected all the falling snow and ice to herself, forming a large ball of warmish water with the stolen heat of the air she fell through. Ariel slowed her fall then matched speed with the goat as it entered the ball of water, and used currents to keep it near the top, with its head free. Its heart and legs beat rapidly in a panic. Ariel slowed their descent and dodged to the side as the rock and shower of stones passed them.

Carefully rising, Ariel crested the ridge just as the boulder smashed into the ground far below, startling the goat all over again. She tried to gently set it down on secure ground, but it thrashed its way free and fell awkwardly before scrambling to higher ground. Ariel dumped the extra water she had collected and sped after the goat just long enough to pull the residual water from its coat.

Catching that goat was the first time she had intentionally touched something living since becoming an elemental spirit, Ariel realised. It had made her feel like a heroine rather than a distant alleged goddess. It was pleasant.

This place wasn't though. Before she froze again, Ariel demanifested and located a damp cliff on the edge of a tropical forested island. She manifested below, floating on the sea, massaged by the mild rain. Much nicer.

Ariel once more focused her thoughts on the memory of the transformation. How it felt, what happened. The swirling yellow lightning that spun around her, through her, and her body had writhed uncontrollably and _changed_ with blinding flashes of yellow light.

A small current of yellow lightning flickered around her sea foam form.

 _I can do this._

Mermaid seemed to have been her original form, so Ariel supposed that would be a good one to go back to as a test. Humans were more interesting in many ways, but if this worked she'd be able to try whatever form she liked. No need to rush. Besides, some of the people who had summoned her had mentioned that she had appeared earlier in world-time as an elemental in the form of a mermaid, so Ariel was confident that this must work.

Whatever that other elemental's goal, if it even had one beyond curiosity, it had helped her make this discovery.

Ariel considered the memory of the transformation. She pictured the same thing happening, but with her transforming from sea foam to her original mermaid form. The golden energy intensified, swirling and crackling. Ariel willed it with all her being, and reached into it with her power.

It started. Her sea foam body writhed, swirled. She formed the rough shape of a mermaid, twisting on the surface of the water as the lightning danced around her.

It felt wrong. Her power wasn't supposed to do this. It wasn't her thing. This was so much harder than anything related to erosion or time travel, and her effort wasn't enough. The process pulled at _something else_ , something distant, seeking to draw on its power. That _thing_ resisted.

Ariel writhed in agony, tearing herself apart over and over with the twisting golden lightning, sinking. She realised her mistake with a sad, hilarious clarity.

Whatever had previously held the power of Erosion had held it so loosely that a collection of slightly unusual sea foam had managed to steal it completely, simply by being in the right place to slightly speed up the collapse of a cliff. Ariel, now Erosion, had inadvertently tried to steal the power of Time when she pushed herself toward an overview position of time itself. Time had not been impressed, so had manifested to investigate her. When Ariel accidentally touched the transformation power that was used on her in her memory, _Time_ had been afraid.

Now Ariel was attempting to _steal_ that transformation power from whatever it belonged to. The owner was not pleased. It held the transformation power strongly and struggled to stop Ariel from having it. Through the power, Ariel could feel its presence, and she knew it could feel her.

Then Ariel heard a song without words, distant and beautiful.

With a _snap_ the transformation power sprang back to its owner, but Ariel still had... something. The small thing which had given her leverage on the transformation power. It felt like it was something of hers, but it crackled with residual golden lightning. It became part of her again, like a stone shard fitting back onto a pebble.

There was a flash of golden light, and the transformation completed.

Ariel swam back to the surface and threw her head back to clear her hair from her face. She was a mermaid! A mermaid with intense red hair, fair skin, and a green tail, just like in her memories!

Ariel laughed in wonder, then gasped at the sound of her voice and covered her mouth before dropping her hand to touch her throat. This was the voice she had heard singing, the voice that was taken before her transformation to a human!

"I have my voice back!"

Turning to face the beautiful rainforest-clad island, Ariel screamed as her slim arms began to dissolve into sea foam again. The black tentacle wrapping around her head cut the scream short.


End file.
